Uncategorized

0000-0002-8715-2896After five years and over a hundred posts, PLOSBLOGS is retiring its psychology blog, Mind the Brain, from our PLOS-hosted blog network. By mutual agreement with the primary Mind the Brain blogger, James Coyne, Professor

The tour of the sausage factory is starting, here’s your brochure telling you’ll see. A recent review has received a lot of attention with it being used for claims that mind-body interventions have distinct

Disclaimer: I’ve worked closely with some of the SEYLE investigators on other projects. I have great respect for their work. Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe was a complex, multisite suicide prevention project of

A seriously flawed overview “systematic review “ of systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the effects of mindfulness on health and well-being alerts readers how they need to be skeptical of what they are told about

Unwarranted claims that “modifiable” negative beliefs cause Alzheimer’s disease lead to blaming persons who develop Alzheimer’s disease for not having been more positive. Lesson: A source’s impressive credentials are no substitute for independent critical appraisal

Life is too short for wasting time probing every instance of professional organizations promoting bad science when they have an established record of doing just that. There were lots of indicators that’s what we were

I ponder this question guided by Le Chavalier C. Auguste Dupin, the first fictional detective, before anyone was called “detective.” Articles reporting the PACE trial have extraordinary numbers of authors, acknowledgments, and institutional affiliations. A

In this issue of Mind the Brain, I demonstrate a quick assessment of the conduct and reporting of a clinical trial. The authors claimed in Lancet Psychiatry a “first ever” in targeting “worries” with brief

I am delighted to offer Mind the Brain readers a guest blog written by Keith Humphreys, Ph.D., John Finney, Ph.D., Alex Sox-Harris, Ph.D., and Daniel Kivlahan, Ph.D. Drs. Humphreys, Sox-Harris, and Finney are at the

Special thanks to Don Klein, MD and Bruce Thyer, PhD for helpful discussions, but all opinions expressed are the author’s alone. Is there any benefit to adding psychotherapy to well-managed treatment with antidepressants? This clinically

Special thanks to Professor Keith Laws, blogger at LawsDystopiaBlog and especially the pseudonymous Neurocritic for their helpful comments. But any excesses or inaccuracies are entirely my own responsibility. You may be more able to

A new study just published in the BMJ makes this very point. Changes in antidepressant use by young people and suicidal behavior after FDA warnings and media coverage: quasi-experimental study The title makes two claims: That the

For the better part of the last two decades I have practiced psychiatry in a variety of different American healthcare systems, and over these years I have, on numerous occasions, heard psychiatric services referred to

An old movie by now, Ron Howard’s 2001 highly awarded “A Beautiful Mind” graciously stands the test of time when it comes to great movies about severe mental illness illustrating the patient’s perspective. This biographical

I think it would be fair to say that most mental health professionals groan when watching how mental illness is represented on T.V shows. Too often popular culture portrays the lives of individuals living with

We would not waste time with a meta-analysis from Pfizer claiming the superiority of its antidepressant. Particularly when it’s a meta analysis of trials mostly done by Pfizer. Bah, just another advertisement. What, the review

I am delighted to offer Mind the Brain readers a guest blog written by Keith Humphreys, Ph.D. Dr. Humphreys is a Professor and the Section Director for Mental Health Policy in the Department of Psychiatry